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It was cut into sixteen pieces to facilitate the making of this 1920 etching; when these were subsequently stuck back together (by Sickert’s third wife Thérèse Lessore?) the middle two squares in the bottom row were mistakenly transposed.
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The most affecting image in the exhibition, however, is this recent painting of the now wheechair-bound artist and his great nephew (and studio assistant) Richard.
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Also on show are some of the cooler and more melancholy Moon Series of iPad pictures made in Normandy in 2020, previously seen in exhibitions in Rouen and Paris.
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Hell too, John-Paul! And glad you agree.

Bloomsbury's critical fortunes have been cyclical since the 1920s and I won't be at all surprised to see another bursting of the bubble in 2026.
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Bloomsbury's current resurgence began with the Vanessa Bell exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2017, after which auction prices for Bloomsbury art rocketed, public and commercial galleries mounted new exhibitions, fashion designers jumped on the bandwagon, etc.
3/4

Many of the critics who hated that exhibition are still writing for the same publications today; and I predict a similar response to next year's show. After 1999 Grant, Bell et al largely disappeared from view in public galleries for more than fifteen years.
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This is not, in fact, his first wife Grace Canedy - who had returned to America a year before this painting was made - but his younger sister Irene Battiscombe. It was painted at the Battiscombes’ house in Warwick in spring 1910.

The Prince of Wales (as he then was) was prompted to commission this by his admiration for Bastien-Lepage’s portrait of Sarah Bernhardt (of whom he was also a great admirer). Bastien’s huge popularity & influence in Britain derived from the exhibition of the latter at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880.

And hating a painting can definitely be cathartic. Here’s one I especially loathe - a set-piece so contrived it seems an absurd parody, with the models dropped onto the bed like limp puppets and a child tossed onto the floor like a discarded doll.
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Quoted in David Trotter’s review in @lrb.co.uk of new books published to coincide with the centenary of Mrs Dalloway.
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